The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), is already putting on his best “don’t look behind the curtain” routine when it comes to the enormity of his proposed bill. He would have us believe that the Ag Committee really scraped the bottom of the barrel to save money this go around!

Instead of the $35 billion in “savings” from last year’s proposed bill, Rep. Lucas was able to stretch things out to find $38 billion for this year’s mark up. “I was compelled to match his [President Obama] number. I’m saving $38 billion from the farm bill process,” Lucas said.

Indeed. The problem of course is that this bill doesn’t save much of anything considering the cost is some 60% higher than the original estimate for the 2008 farm bill. And there’s also that slight little hiccup courtesy of CBO showing the $35 billion in “savings” from last year’s proposed bill was actually more like $26 billion.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along!

As Heritage’s Diane Katz repeatedly pointed out last year, finding savings and making reforms in America’s agriculture policy should be low-hanging fruit for lawmakers. The farm subsidies being financed by taxpayers are Depression-era relics that can no longer be justified. This is especially true considering net farm income has hit record highs for the past couple of years. Furthermore, this was in spite of the severe drought that swept across the heartland last year—a drought largely recognized as one of the worst ones in a century.

As the Senate prepares to mark up its bill tomorrow and the House moves to do so on Wednesday, it’s imperative that Americans use this legislation as a litmus test for their representatives. Are Members of Congress serious about cutting spending and changing business as usual in Washington?

We’ll find out soon. We’ve seen this movie before and it doesn’t end well for either our freedom or our wallets, which is why we must remain ever vigilant.

Do you realize that the Agriculture Funds also funds the Federal Correctional Department. I realize years ago this may apply because many farms were run on the Department of Corrections or the VA Hospitals but NO LONGER. My questions is then why do we fund the Department of Corrections from the alocated money for the Agriculture Department?
Signed, Simple Minded

Libs want to put everyone on a diet; lets start with the fat ass breeders whose grocery carts overflow with stuff I cant afford, paid with the dollars the politicians rip off from unwitting taxpayers. The only “free lunch” taxpayers get, is the one they subsidize for the moochers.

Report the people who abuse the system.
The system is set up to help those who are currently in poverty to afford healthy options, not prepackaged items.
Not everyone who uses the system abuses it, but it is like any population: the most extreme examples are the most visible, and obnoxious.

Who do I report it to: Obama, Holder, Geithner, Sibelius, Reed, Pelosi; ALL these pigs are feeding at the same freebie trough,
the guys with the EBT’s & SNAPS are just the “feed soldiers” sampling the wares. Visible and obnoxious has nothing to do with the CORRUPTION of the Regime; but we know it is all the fault of the slave owners, founding fathers and most of all; That DEVIL BUSH.
Get your heads out of your rears before you suffocate .

Report it to your local county office for Health and Human Services. They will handle welfare fraud for you. I have no idea what you mean by “feed Soldiers” though I do agree that the politik elite are indeed corrupt.

Feed Soldiers ARE most of the folks operating on EBT and SNAP programs which provide them the stuff folks like me WHO PAY FOR THE PROGRAM can not afford. In addition, and with very few exceptions; these folks all need to be put on a 2,000 max calorie diet; starting with home cooked rice and beans. Billions of people around the world subsist on rice, beans and an occasional chicken gizzard; and most of them pay for it. The political elite take the major percentage of the
freebies in the form of votes, from the hogs they’re slopping.

I have a part time in a grocery store as a cashier . Some of these welfare mothers buy tons of crab meat, crab legs, shrimp!! Also family packs of porterhouse steaks . Lots of one dollar junk !! One woman purchased 5 different flavors of Oreo cookies and a couple of packs chips ahoy in different flavors !! I heard one woman complain about needing a thousand dollars a month more in food stamps to eat like rich people ?? Think about it !!

If you see someone who is clearly using the system fraudulently- report them.
If you see someone who is unwisely spending their foodstamps, then you might want to befriend them and eventually advise them on how they can save their foodstamps to accumulate them, so when they have better employment options, they aren’t left high and dry.

tlars699 who are you? From your vast knowledge of these programs you are obviously intimately acquainted with them and how would that be? Are you a government employee? And as one who has grown up with and had close relationships with people on these kinds of government ‘helps’, the notion that what is needed is ‘someone to befriend them and eventually advise them…’ is either written to patronize those of us writing or from a huge reality gap. I watched my grandmother raise a number of children with only a fifth grade education and without government assistance after my grandfather died. No one was eating crab, steak or buying cigarettes. I remember watching my school age uncles cook grits, and not the instant ones, and combine canned milk with water to save money. I tutor a child now who has five children by three dads. She doesn’t work outside the home, lives in the projects and the child’s youngest sibling celebrated his birthday when his mom rented an inflatable at around $100 a pop. THIS is reality for many. I could go on and on, but I doubt that you are looking for evidence of fraud but to placate those of us who are paying the bills for the waste WE SEE DAILY!!

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